Chương 62: Chapter 58

Sobelle wordlessly brought back the grazer she had hunted. Chael turned away from what she was cooking—some kind of stew made from vegetables was Sobelle's guess—and looked at the animal her companion brought back. The merchant curiously stared at the snake Sobelle held with her other hand.

"Why do you have a snake with you?"

"Almost got bit." Sobelle assumed this was caused by the cursed bad luck she had to deal with.

"I managed to kill it before it got me." She didn't look at Chael after she said this because she was busy with bleeding out her kill, but if she did, she'd see that the girl looked terrified.

"This kill's pretty good too, I think we can get several meals out of it. What do you think?"

"I think that you shouldn't take unnecessary risks." Chael threw out her concern.

"Don't go into the field of grass full of raptors, snakes, and whatever venomous insect is waiting in it. That'd just get you killed."

"Maybe, but what can we do about it? The bad luck will always happen no matter what, won't it?" Sobelle hadn't said anything, but she made it clear that she referred to her wasted attempt at getting the curse off her.

"I won't sit around and wait for an answer Chael, if I have bad luck, then that's too bad. I'm not going to stop just because of that."

"I know that." Chael's reply sounded like she was holding back tears so Sobelle turned and confirmed it for herself. Chael's eyes were red, and she bit her lip. She didn't raise her head, instead, she looked at her clenched fists like they'd be able to solve everything.

"I do. I should have been better, I shouldn't have stopped you. I know that. I do. But— I don't know. I'm just..." Sobelle looked away, she listened to Chael's repeated regrets while she prepared her kill. She hung the animal on a stick and sliced open the throat to let it bleed. She left it alone and worked on something else, mainly, she prepared some fat to cure the hide with. She also made a drying rack.

"I'm so sorry." Chael finished everything with an apology. Sobelle did not look up from the carcass and just flayed it tirelessly. The skin came off, and so did Chael's mask of bravery.

"I don't know how to make it up to you, I should have supported you, maybe we could have reached your family and everything would have been fine then."

"What's the point of apologizing now?" Sobelle went and hanged the skinless grazer before stretching the hide on the rack. She slathered it with fat and herbs to cure it.

"Everything is done, we've left the village, and now we're on our way to UnThilen."

"Yes, but you're still cursed." Oh so now that was an issue? Now she could see that being cursed wasn't a good thing? It seemed that Chael was slow to realize certain things.

"If I just let you go, you would have fixed it—""So what?" Sobelle snapped, cutting off the merchant from saying anything else.

"Would your regrets suddenly fix everything? I don't see why you think that saying your mistakes out loud will fix them Chael, you stopped me, and argued with me. And that got the chief to come to us, so we had to leave. Why are you crying about your own decisions?"

"If things were different—""They aren't!" Sobelle crushed the wooden handle of her dagger from how tightly she held it. Was Chael delusional? Why did she keep mentioning some reality that did not exist and acting like it was possible for them to grasp? Sobelle didn't get it.

"We're here, and what's done is done. Stop worrying about things you no longer have control over and start thinking about what we can do for ourselves now that we've left the village."

"R-right. I'm sorry." Chael still looked like she wanted to say something else but just swallowed it with a gulp. She inhaled.

"Are you gonna be ok? The curse seems like it'd be bad if you don't take care of it soon." The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I will be." Sobelle hadn't bothered to mention that she would have taken care of the curse had Chael not stopped her. She knew it'd just cause another argument to erupt between the two of them.

"The fire seems to keep it away, somehow."

"Well, the fire god's blessing is a powerful one. My people use it to tame drakes, and even scar themselves because of it... Or that's what my father told me. I haven't really met anyone from the south, but I do like to speculate about my own culture." Chael wore a wistful smile as she described what she believed her people did.

"I want to meet them one day, maybe when the war starts to settle."

"War?" Sobelle heard Chael mention it several times in passing, yet the merchant never explained it.

"What's going on?"

"Mhmm. The war. Or what's about to be a war, rather." Chael looked at a direction, which to Sobelle felt so random.

"Before we came here, people told us that tensions are rising between Oduct and Milisach." Sobelle wondered if it was truly right for the merchants to adhere to what villagers told them and realized that she was being a hypocrite.

"And according to rumors, a full blown war would soon erupt. Conscription hasn't happened yet so I don't think the kingdoms are truly going to war, but at the same time, I'm worried that it might just happen."

"We'll be fine though, won't we?" Sobelle thought about it and realized that, unlike men, she wouldn't be forced to fight. Which would have disturbed her if it wasn't for the fact that she was starting to realize that being a knight wasn't as great as she originally thought.

'Maybe Chael is right, that knights are only useful when there's war. And when was the last time that happened? Do they really just sit in the same place for several seasons when times are peaceful?'

"I don't think we will." Chael countered Sobelle's reassurance with a terrified look. She gripped her dress tightly. Chael continued before Sobelle could say something, "There will be issues for us, I know that we won't be forced into the war itself, but the lack of protection for villages means that bandits would become widespread."

"Why would they become widespread when the men are at war? Who'd become bandits, women?" Sobelle almost scoffed in dismissal if it wasn't for Chael's serious expression. She paused, thinking.

"I still don't get it, who'd become bandits? There's no one left to do that kind of crime!"

"This is just speculation, but if you ask me, I think that city lords are the ones responsible for such things. They release criminals and then hire them to grab slaves to sell, it is a profitable business after all, so it wouldn't be surprising to see them do that." Chael was negative about the world, much like always. But her words did give Sobelle some perspective into her own understanding.

"Have you met a noble before?" Sobelle realized that besides the chief, she'd never seen an aristocrat in her life.

"I hear that some of them can be a bit problematic, and my father told me that one almost took my mother from him if they hadn't escaped the city."

"Well, then you'd be right. They are problematic." Chael frowned, as if she remembered something unpleasant.

"Of course they'd do something like that, nobles are so disgusting that I know your father's story is real."

"Of course it's real, my father doesn't lie when it comes to my mother." To the point that it made Sobelle wonder why he was so quick to replace her after she died.

"So if he says that some noble tried to take my mother, then I believe him."

"I believe him too." Chael tilted her head and shot Sobelle a hungry look.

"If you were a noble, would you want to take me, Sobelle?"

"Let's not start something like that." Sobelle stood up in discomfort. She turned away from the fire and went to her kill.

"I'm going to prepare the meat, if you want to eat stew, then I think it's best we start boiling the water now."

"I'll do that." Chael sounded disappointed, and yet she didn't try to push things any further. Sobelle was happy about it, really. She didn't want anything to do with Chael and her body right now. A lot of things went through Sobelle's mind as she butchered the grazer, and she couldn't keep track of any of them, from the Gods themselves to the world around her and the journey she was about to take, all of it came to her mind and disoriented her badly enough that she almost cut her own finger.

More importantly, thoughts about the village and her family came and went, and she felt bittersweet every time they appeared.

'I don't care about everything they've done for me, I've saved them all from a fate worse than death. That's gotta be good enough to pay for all the years I spent living there. And if they're not satisfied with that, then maybe it was good that I left them.' She exhaled, exhausted. At the end of the day, she knew that the only path she had now was to forget about the village and keep moving forward.